Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on June 14, 2023 in New York City.
Spencer Platt | fake images
Stock futures are nearly flat Thursday night as investors shifted focus from the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting earlier in the week to the next economic data set to be released on Friday morning.
Futures linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 28 points, or 0.1%. Futures for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 also fell 0.1% each.
galactic virgin The shares rose more than 40% in extended trading after the company announced that its first commercial space tourism flight is scheduled for later this month. Adobe added more than 2% after the tech company beat Wall Street estimates for its fiscal second-quarter results and issued upbeat expectations for performance for the current quarter and full-year.
The moves follow a winning session on Wall Street as investors bet interest rate hikes would come to an end after the Federal Reserve announced it would not raise rates at its meeting this week. All three major indices ended Thursday’s session more than 1% higher, marking the sixth straight day of gains for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite. It is the longest winning streak for the S&P 500 since November 2021.
With only Friday’s session remaining, all three indices are also on track for weekly gains, taking advantage of a recent rally across the market. Up nearly 3%, the S&P 500 is on track for its best weekly performance since March. The Nasdaq Composite has gained nearly 4% since the start of the week, setting it up for its eighth straight winning week, the tech index’s longest weekly streak since a 10-week period ending in March 2019.
He Dow has gained a relatively modest 1.6% this week. Gains have been constrained by a drop of more than 5% in UnitedHealth.
“Investors are looking for a variety of reasons to say, ‘OK, does this move have legs? Is it sustainable?'” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research. “What they’re finding is that yes, it’s sustainable in the long term.”
Market participants will be watching on Friday for consumer confidence data to be released in the morning. Friday’s session will probably be busy given the quarterly rebalancing of some indices and the expiration of some options that are expected to occur.
This so-called quadruple witchcraft can result in increased market volatility and trading volume. However, the expiration week often tends to be higher during bull markets and lower in bear markets, according to Stock Trader’s Almanac. That may bode well at least for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite, both of which are posting strong weeks so far.
Friday also marks the last trading day before a long weekend, with the market closed on Monday in observance of June 16.
